


better than your dreams

by certifiablemess



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Deja Vu, Dreams, F/M, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, but not the way you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22268167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certifiablemess/pseuds/certifiablemess
Summary: "I don't dream of you.""What?" Brienne freezes, staring to her side at Jaime."I don't dream of you," he repeats, shifting in his seat to face her. "I dream of everyone, but never you. Why?"
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 26
Kudos: 157





	better than your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Everybody knows Jaime's famous "I dreamed of you" quote and I got it in my head that it'd be fun to invert it and see what happens and... ta da! This is the result! It's a lil bit magical, with respect to dreams/premonitions, but not enough to call it magic/fantasy. 
> 
> This is my first JB fic, my first Thrones fic – please feel free to correct my characterisation, Easter eggs, references, so on and so forth.
> 
> Written 12 hours ago, so it hasn't been thoroughly proofread/edited yet. Hopefully, there aren't enough errors to distract you from the story. Title is from the Dr Seuss quote that, I think, sums this work up nicely.
> 
> Enjoy!

"I don't dream of you."

"What?" Brienne freezes, staring to her side at Jaime. 

"I don't dream of you," he repeats, shifting in his seat to face her. He drapes an arm across the back of her chair, his arm barely brushing against her back. She watches his eyes flick across her face, searching for something beyond the flush she feels colouring her face. "I dream of everyone, but never you. Why?"

She tries to ignore how breathless he sounds. His face is so close – too close – to hers that it's almost impossible to break away from the gaze of emeralds. Almost. She clears her throat, sitting up straight in an attempt to shrug his arm off the back of her chair. It doesn't work, so she stands instead, taking his empty plate and her own.

"How should I know how your twisted mind works," she says over her shoulder, dropping the dishes in the sink and lathering them in dishwashing liquid.

"You don't understand," Jaime says.

Brienne hears the scrape of his chair, the scrambling footsteps stopping behind her, and yet she is still startled by his strong tug on her now-soapy forearm. She protests at the grip but then she sees meets his concentrated gaze – as green and wild as wildfire – and her breath catches inaudibly in her throat. 

The deep-set frown he wears is still somehow just as perfectly designed as his other features. His slight dimples, present no matter how his mouth moves. The sharpness of his stubbled, clenched jaw. His furrowed, clearly concerned eyebrows that he swears he never has sculpted — which, frankly, Brienne thinks he lies about or the gods truly aren't fair. His face is all screwed up in serious concentration but assembled in such perfect chaos that he still looks just that; infuriatingly perfect.

Brienne half-expects him to make some snide comment on her own appearance, judging by the way he's scrunitising her freckled, crooked face. He is staring so intensely that she is suddenly all too aware that – while Jaime's looks are the result of perfect chaos – her looks are also the result of some other form of chaos; reckless, uncontrolled, and imperfect. The scarlet blush, that she feels creeping across her face, doesn't do her any favours either.

If he stares for any longer she might have to, literally, slap him out of it. 

"I have a gift." 

Well, she wasn't expecting _that_. And his raised eyebrows tell her that he wasn't expecting her to snort.

"Of course you do," Brienne says, rolling her eyes. She pulls her arm from his loosened grip and focuses on washing the dishes, scrubbing much harder than necessary.

He'll never admit it but she swears, to the Old Gods and the Seven, he splutters. She made Jaime Lannister splutter. She would laugh about it, too, if he weren't standing so close – a hand now resting on the small of her back, the other bearing his weight on the countertop.

"It's true," he insists, his voice stuttering as he tries to hide a small laugh.

Brienne hums, nodding with a smirk. She feels his hand slide up her back, stopping to rest between her shoulder blades; she hopes he can't feel the rapid beating in her chest. 

"I dream of everyone— well, everyone important to me," Jaime continues.

Brienne rinses off the soapy dishes, rolling her eyes. "And I'm important to you."

"Of course," Jaime answers, his voice gone soft and serious again. 

She sneaks a glance at him, but his stare never left hers. His hand slides further up her back, the curl of his fingers tracing lightly on the nape of her neck. She hopes he doesn't notice her sharp breath in. 

"What about Melara?" She grabs a towel and shoves it at his chest, ignoring the cool air on her neck where his hand rested moments ago.

He frowns, taking the towel and the dishes she hands him. "What about her?"

"Do you dream of her?" Brienne asks, looking intently at where water splashed around the sink, and wiping it away with another towel.

_"Why_ would I dream of Melara?" Jaime asks, his face screwed up in confusion. He dries the plates and puts them back in the cabinet above their heads.

"Because you're dating her."

She hangs her damp towel on the edge of the countertop and looks back at Jaime who has thrown his own towel over his shoulder, arms crossed, and leans his hip against the counter. Brienne tries not to let that image imprint too deeply into her mind.

" _Was_ dating her, and very briefly, too, might I add," he corrects, matter-of-factly. "So, no, I never dreamed of her."

"Not even— never mind."

Brienne is sure her skin has just invented a new shade of furious pink. His smirk only worsens it. 

"Maybe you didn't spend enough time with her," she says, trying and arguably failing to steady her quavering voice. 

"Or maybe I don't spend enough time with you."

She rolls her eyes. "We spend _too_ much time together, Jaime."

He takes a step closer, his hand once again smoothing up and down her back.

"Not as much as I'd like," he murmurs. 

She decidedly ignores the low, reverberating tone of his voice and grabs the towel on his shoulder, hanging it neatly beside hers, the way he always 'forgets' to do it on his own.

"If we spent any more time together, we may as well be living with each other."

"Is that an offer?" Jaime teases.

Brienne throws him a glare, which only widens his smirk and— _curse those damn dimples_.

"I like spending time with you, Jaime," she says, shaking his touch off of her, and picks up the magazines lying on the dining table. She heads for the living room, and says over her shoulder, "but everyone needs limits."

She sees him shrug out of her periphery, as he trails behind her. "Not when you like each other."

Brienne snorts, dropping the magazines on the coffee table and planting herself on the couch. Jaime, still standing, stares down at her. 

"What?" He asks, a smile toying at the corners of his lips despite his furrowed brow.

She shakes her head, crossing her legs and fiddling with her throw pillows. "Nothing."

Something flickers across his expression, and a small frown begins to form as he sprawls beside her.

"What, Brienne?" He asks again, laying his arm behind her. 

"You're the one with the gift, you tell me." She winces at her own sour tone, that was meant to be playful but still, it stung them both.

"Gods, you are stubborn," he mutters. Jaime would laugh at her frustration if he weren't so frustrated himself. "And it's not a joke. The things I dream, they always come true. They have since I was a boy. I dream it and then it plays out in real life, just as it did in my dream."

Brienne sighs, crossing her arms. "Jaime, that's just déjà vu, everyone gets it."

"No, it's not, it's— look—" he huffs, running a hand through his golden hair. He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, his hands wringing each other. She catches the lightness in his eyes become dark and clouded but never diminishing the glowing green of his irises.

Jaime has always been dramatic but this sudden shift, the intensity of his stare into space, this is something that Brienne has never seen in him. She berates herself for checking him out right now, but his lightly mussed hair, his jaw and hands, clenched with nervousness, are all very hard to ignore. His tongue darts out to lick his lips before he speaks, and she can hear her thoughts yelling, shouting, screaming at her to focus on her _friend_ and what he's about to tell her. 

"When I was four years old, I dreamed that my mother died in hospital shortly after giving birth," he says quietly. "She wasn't pregnant at the time but then the next year, when she had Tyrion, it happened."

Brienne holds her breath and her tongue. She wants to offer condolences but she knows there's more to come. 

"When I was nine, I dreamed that Tyrion crashed while learning to ride a bike and tore half his nose off. It didn't happen as dramatically as it did in my dream, but guess who has a scar running across his face from a bike crash?" He looks at her and runs a finger across diagonally down his right eyelid, the bridge of his nose, his left cheek.

Jaime stares at his hands again, rubbing at his palms. "I dreamed that my father turned against his predecessor and usurped his position as CEO, and now we have Lannister Incorporated instead of Targaryen Holdings. I dreamed that Cersei would marry – whom I didn't know – but I knew that they would have a baby and that that baby would die in her arms, along with their marriage. Now she's divorced. Childless."

He looks up at her, eyes glazed. "I dreamed of all this, but I have never dreamed of you. And that terrifies me."

"Why?" 

"Because..." he starts, gesturing at nothing in particular. "I care about you."

There's a lull, and it isn't awkward but it's charged with something... tempting. And risky. Brienne had never considered it to be risky before, but with four words – spoken with sincerity that she has rarely heard from him – Jaime has gone and mapped out some dangerous territory.

"Maybe it's a good thing, then, that you don't dream of me," she says instead, keeping her worries to herself.

Jaime furrows his brow, and she sees his jaw clenching more if that were even possible. 

She shrugs, pretending not to notice. "Someone's got to keep you on your toes."

Jaime stares at her for a beat, unmoving. If she didn't know better, Brienne would've thought him a statue and a figment of her imagination. It would make sense, given his chiseled features but, no, Jaime Lannister is most definitely a real man sitting beside her, just... _staring_ as he considers her words.

A familiar glimmer lights up his eyes and – to her great relief – he laughs, breathlessly, as he sinks into the couch and leans in towards her.

"You're full of surprises, Brienne Tarth," he says, with that same sincerity as before. His eyes flash with something like concern, lips twitching at the corners, before he quietly adds, "that's exactly why I like you."

Brienne asks, in a breath that she didn't know she was holding, "What about Melara?"

"Gods, what about her?" Jaime groans, throwing his head back and now is _really_ not the time to be looking at the veins in his neck.

"You _know_ what, Jaime. I mean..." She sighs, gesturing vaguely at herself and crossing her arms. "Look at me. Look at _her_."

Jaime simply shrugs. "Not my type."

"Of course you have a type," Brienne mutters, more to herself than anything.

"I like a woman who can hold me down once in a while," Jaime drawls casually. "Or all the while." 

She pretends to miss his eyes roaming over her but, still, she feels the heat flaring in her cheeks, amongst other areas. 

"Besides, I only went out with Melara because Cersei hooked up with Addam – which I dreamed of, by the way. I can never get that image out of my head." He shudders. "It was silly payback, that's all."

Brienne frowns, drawing her legs up under her. "Good to know it's all just a joke to you."

"Hey, no, it wasn't like that." Jaime reaches over, his hands trying to pry apart her crossed arms. "Melara was in on it too. She's been in love with Addam since forever, so when Cersei... did what she did, we got back at her. It was win-win, I swear it."

Brienne lets him unravel her arms, her wrists resting in his hands. He stares down at where they're connected, idly caressing her freckled skin with his thumbs.

"I'm not Hyle. Or Ronnet," he says softly, as slowly as he slides his hands into hers. "There are no men like me, only me."

Brienne rolls her eyes, a small smile daring to make itself known on her thick lips, which makes Jaime chuckle in return. 

"And I mean it. I like you, a lot. I care about you deeply," he admits, squeezing Brienne's calloused hands in his own. She squeezes back just as firmly. 

He meets her eyes, emeralds getting lost in sapphires. She's already blushing furiously when she catches the bob of his Adam's apple, the quick lick of his lips before he speaks again.

"It's not a joke, I would never joke about that. Just like my dreams aren't a joke." He laughs, shaky and quiet, staring down at their hands, fingers intertwined. "That would've gone a lot smoother if I could dream of you."

"I doubt it," she teases, after a beat. 

Jaime scoffs, looking up at her through his long, blonde eyelashes. He pulls a cushion from behind himself and tosses it at her, grinning. "Thanks."

She giggles and catches it, throwing it back at him. It hits him square in the face and hard enough that he grunts with a chuckle.

"Maybe I like you too," she says slowly, making sure that her voice doesn't shake with the way her whole body is trembling.

"' _Maybe_ '?" Jaime repeats.

He throws more cushions at her, despite her playful yelps and protests, and lunges at her when he's made good work of lowering her defences. He lands on top of Brienne, his arms coming to rest on either side of her head as gravity lays them flat on the couch, their faces now mere inches, centimetres, too close together yet too far apart. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest, and for once Brienne doesn't mind being as flat-chested as she is because she can feel his heartbeat against her own, complementing hers in pace and rhythm.

His warm breath washes over her lips, and it warms her all over. She meets his gaze, now dark but still soft and promising, and it feels so much like safety that she isn't quite sure if she's awake or dreaming.

_Maybe this is how he feels when his dreams come to life_ , she thinks. 

He draws a deep breath, and she feels his hands softly brushing her short hair off her face, tucking it behind her ears, caressing her cheek. 

"You have so many freckles," Jaime murmurs, his eyes dancing across her face, gently tracing their path with his thumb.

His eyes flick down to her lips just as his thumb traces over them, and then he does it again; the quick lick of his lips that she's come to recognise as his signature nervous tic, just as she bites her own lips for the same reasons.

"Anything I can do to change that 'maybe' to a 'definitely'?" Jaime asks, his hand coming to rest behind her jaw.

"What did you have in mind?" Brienne whispers breathlessly. 

His grin is as bright as the sun. His hair falls over his face – and hers – like the lion he is, a true Lannister with a heart of gold. Without another word, he leans down and presses their lips together as they've been aching to do since only the Gods know when. 

Brienne gasps, her hands immediately reaching up to grip in his hair, his jaw, his neck – any part of him that will allow her to pull him _closer_. She feels his own hands doing the same, tilting her chin up towards him and cupping her cheeks in their strong grip.

They start gently, delicately, almost as if the other will break. That, in itself, is intoxicating. And then Jaime gets bolder. He slowly slides his tongue into her mouth, moaning when their muscles meet and sending shivers down Brienne's spine. She does her best to reciprocate, fingers pressing into his neck and revelling in the feel of his pulse at her fingertips, but then suddenly he's pulling away with a small chuckle. 

Jaime rests his forehead on hers, eyes closed, a wide smile plastered on his wet lips. Brienne tries to steady her breathing, not wanting to pant all over him, but a small, breathless laugh escapes her instead. His hands continually brush her disheveled hair off her face when he opens his eyes, gazing down into hers.

"Do you still only maybe like me?" He asks.

Brienne hums, resting her hands on his wrists by her face. "I don't know. Maybe we should try it again, just to be sure."

Jaime laughs, dropping his head to her collar and planting a row of wet kisses along her collarbone, and making her sigh. 

"Stubborn woman," he mutters into her neck, trailing kisses higher and higher. Her hands come back to tangle in his hair and pull him up, their lips meeting once again. 

Gone are the delicate, close-mouthed kisses. They've crossed the threshold; between friendship and something more, innocence and desire. Brienne has imagined this scenario many times before, but none of them compare to the real thing: to breathing in Jaime's scent, to feeling his lips and tongue brushing against her own, to feeling his perfectly straight nose crush against her crooked and thrice-broken one. Nothing compares to the sounds that flood her senses, the tremolo of his moans and the desperate whimpers from her throat. She most definitely was not prepared for the harsh, guttural growl that escapes Jaime when she sucks and bites down on his bottom lip. 

He has to pull away when she does, and she places one more gentle kiss on where she bit him. She swears it makes him shiver. 

The only sound that lingers in the air is their heavy breathing. Jaime curses under his breath, his head resting on her shoulder making her tremble. Her fingers, still twisted in his hair, gently stroke the length of his locks, curling at and grazing the nape of his neck. 

"I love you, Jaime."

It's out of her mouth before she can stop herself. She says it so breathlessly that she's not quite sure that Jaime even heard her, but his shoulders stiffen and she knows that he did. 

She silently yells a curse into the air, staring up at the ceiling, not daring to look at him as he pushes himself up on his forearms. How could it be that she is trembling now for reasons that are entirely different from those mere seconds ago? She doesn't want to look at him – can barely bring herself to do it – but she's already come this far. If all she gets is this taste of him, then she may as well look him in the eye and face the consequences head-on. So she does. 

"Brienne..." He looks anywhere but at her own stare.

She watches the dimples in his cheeks grow deeper with his frown, the muscles in his jaw clenching as he grimaces and opens his mouth to speak. Still, she keeps her gaze firmly on him. Brienne holds her breath, preparing for it, the inevitable rejection to hit. 

"Maybe I love you too."

In the blink of an eye, where she was sure there was hesitation, Brienne sees only mirth and a matching mischievous smirk on Jaime's kiss-swollen lips. 

"Jaime Lannister, you absolutely _insufferable_ —" she growls and wallops him with cushions, their laughter ringing through her apartment. 

Jaime decides that this is better than anything his dreams could ever foretell. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much appreciated! Thanks for reading :)


End file.
